Advanced Students Working Hard

These students have only been metalsmithing THIS YEAR and look at their projects!!!

Daphne's large pendant boasts cabochons of jasper and green peridot. She acid-etched the front sheet and soldered on the bezels for the stones. She then refined the shape of the sheet and soldered on a tube bail on the back for a chain. Finally, she oxidized the piece in liver of sulfur, buffing off the high points and leaving the darkness in the crevices of the design etching.

A fantastic, large, and well-executed piece!

This is also a piece of Daphne's creation- a gorgeous cabochon of moonstone set in a decorative gallery wire and soldered to a substantial ring shank.

Monique acid-etched a sterling silver piece, punched holes, and oxidized/buffed it. A work in progress: she's going to string it to make a bracelet with these gorgeous coral beads.

Another seaweed acid-etched neckpiece by Monique.

These beauties by Monique utilize keum-boo- fusing pure gold onto the sterling silver surface, which was first depletion-gilded (annealed 4 times). 2 layers of thin silver sheet became a sturdy backdrop to the gorgeous faceted chalcedony stones.

A gorgeous glass cabochon bezel-set by Monique and ready to put on a chain and wear!

These artsy earrings by Sharon feature 2 sets of rubies- small faceted ones on the bottom drop, and 2 larger star rubies cabochon-set above. Cool hanging earwires too!

Another view of these fab earrings! All metalwork entirely hand-made by Sharon.

This "turbine" ring features a cool plastic button! Sharon bezel-set it and then accented the back plate of sterling with some punches and oxidation. A large ring full of character.

New Group of Metalsmiths

This new batch of beginning metalsmiths are hard workers! Check out their pieces so far:



These beautiful Ankh Earrings are by Jennifer. She made a template for the forms, cut out the silver from a sheet, textured it, soldered on the top teardrop and earwire (folded behind out of view) and then domed and tumbled for shiny perfection. Great prescence and style!

These great Triangle Earrings are by Chris- completed the first night of class. She cut out the triangle shapes out of sheet, textured them, soldered on the earwire and ball accent on front, and called them done! Perfect everyday earrings!

Check out this awesome pierced and sawed Flower Pendant by Joan. She sketched out a design onto the silver, pierced holes, sawed out the design, domed and satin-finished the piece. Complete with bail it's ready to wear.

This is a Teardrop Pendant piece also by Joan. She cut out the shape from sheet, textured it and soldered on the decorative wire in sterling. Tumbled shiny, she then pierced a hole and added a bail.

Jamie worked on this Heart Pin for 2 weeks. After designing the piece, she cut the components out of silver sheet, and soldered on the 2 side wings and the 3 pieces of wire. She textured the piece as well and made a pinback and soldered that on, too. Great on a jacket!

Barbara's Triangular Earrings have a great modern appeal- she cut out the shapes of sheet and carefully soldered on the decorative spiral wire, then bent them into earwires. Tumbled for shine, she wore them home.

This is Amy's exercise in soldering rings together. A pendant? One of an earring pair? Only time will tell.....

Great work soldering everyone! Next week- more piercing and sawing pieces!

Learn How to Solder in an Evening
This new batch of students was top-rate! They worked hard and created some AMAZING pieces!


Veronica's earrings were made by cutting rectangular shapes from sterling silver sheet and texturing them with a ball peen hammer. She then soldered on the decorative wire and earwires, textured the wire, oxidized and buffed the earrings, and formed the earwires. Great work!

Tony's project was a bracelet tag for his wife Nancy (a cursive "N" in wire!) which he soldered, textured and oxidized. He'll add some beads for a custom gift!

Loretta's gorgeous chain was an ambitious project- she did all the soldering in one class! She will be completing the project by hammering the links and buffing them with sandpaper. She even made the S-clasp!

Way to go solderers!

Final Class for Beginners

Last night's class was the last in the beginning metalsmith series. These students went from fearing the torch to: soldering, piercing, sawing, texturing, forming, oxidizing and finishing. Good job everyone!

This remarkable pin is by Daphne. It's quite large and is inspired by a piece that was featured on the cover of a jewelry magazine recently. Daphne accomplished this in only 2 weeks! She designed and produced stencils to cut out her silver and brass pieces, pierced/cut the designs out, and formed them concavely on a mandrel. She then created the back piece and soldered brass accent balls onto the front, as well as a spiral. She then soldered the front pieces together, then soldered that onto the backplate. Lastly, she created a pin stem for the back and soldered that on as well. To finish up, she oxidized the piece, then removed most of the finish save for the back plate and giving the front piece a nice satiny finish. Great job, Daphne!

This lovely bracelet was created by Lizzy. She also spent 2 weeks on this beauty. She coiled and cut loops from sterling wire and sterling twist wire, all 16 gauge, then soldered the links together step by step. She also hammered the round wire flat for contrast. Lastly, she created the decorative toggle with soldered accent, and tumbled the whole thing until shiny. Very elegant!

This lovely necklace is by Laura- she textured and cut out each rectangle, soldering on a design to the lower 2 pieces. She then coiled and cut out links, created a closure s-clasp, and joined everything together. All the pieces were tumbled shiny and the result is terrific!

Thanks to all the students- I had a great time helping you and seeing what you wanted to create!

Midway Through Beginning Metalsmithing

Last night's class produced some awesome finished projects!

This is Lizzy's "Globe" pendant. She designed then pierced and sawed out the globe in sterling silver and then soldered it and a wire border onto a copper backer sheet, which was also sawed out, pierced for a bail, and tumbled till it shined!

This is Daphne's pendant. She also sketched out her design, then pierced and sawed out the design, and hammered it for a nice textured finish.

Daphne made a beautiful bracelet out of 16-gauge sterling silver wire. Each link was coiled, cut, filed and soldered, before being hammered and tumbled for shine. She even made the S-link closure!

These fun wire earrings were made by Laura- she matched set a pair of 16-gauge wire squiggles, then soldered on some 20-gauge earwires, hammered and tumbled.

This beautiful rustic ring by Laura required piercing, sawing, texturing, soldering and tumbling. She also formed the ring on a mandrel to get it round, and soldered some gorgeous copper accent pieces on.

This is another view of Laura's ring.

Nice work everyone!

Start of Intro. to Metalsmithing Class

Last night started the first of five introductory classes to metalsmithing! The students learned how to use their torch and how to solder!

These are Lizzy's first pair of earrings! She cut out the square backplates from 24 gauge silver, then formed the spirals. Careful to get them flat, the spirals were then soldered onto the back plate, oxidized, buffed and the earwires bent into earrings.

Daphne chose to make a gorgeous pendant. She layered a teardrop shape of silver onto another larger teardrop shape, soldered them together, then formed and soldered a wire spiral to finish it off. She then drilled a hole for a bail, oxidized and buffed, and her work of art was done!

Laura made an I.D. bracelet of her daughter's name and birthdate. She stamped, soldered on the decorative wire, bent the ends, and attached some commercial toggles. She plans to attach some leather straps to the toggles to attach to her wrist.

Nice job everyone!

Learn How to Solder in An Evening

Last night's class "Learn How to Solder in An Evening" produced some AMAZING projects in a very short time! These students have NEVER soldered before, but you wouldn't know it looking at their projects. Each student created a band ring using textured wire, and then chose either a pendant, pin, earring or bracelet project- they all chose earrings! They worked hard to get them to match as close as possible and they all created works of art!

These earrings are by Susan, a painter at the Workhouse. She sketched out her idea, cut out matching pieces of 24-ga. sterling silver sheet, sanded, formed the spiral earwires, and soldered them onto the sheet. She then buffed the earrings and formed the earwires. Nice job!

These projects are by Rhea. She too traced her design onto sheet and cut the shapes out using bench shears, then carefully formed the spirals and soldered them onto the sheet. She also textured the sterling sheet before soldering to create some real visual interest.

These beauties by Roxan were created by cutting out triangular pieces of sheet and forming spirals out of wire to be soldered on top. The end of the spirals were balled up for visual interest. After soldering with medium solder, the earwires were soldered on back with easy solder as not to re-melt the solder on front. After buffing and bending the earwires, they're ready-to-wear!

Lorraine's earrings have almost a calligraphic look to them- she, too, formed the wire into a decorative shape and soldered it onto the sheet. After buffing and polishing, she bent the earwires into shape and wore her new earrings home!

Congratulations to all the students for producing such nice projects- no disasters, whew!